You love your classic WoW more than anything and want to put this hard love to the test? Then we have the right areas for you! Travel with us to the most unattractive, nasty, and draining regions in all of Azeroth!
Your little hero appears with a “plop” in Azeroth and looks around with wide eyes. Everything still looks the same as before! Northshire Priory is completely overrun and plagued by a veritable plague of heroes, beating the local kobold population with rotten sticks and rusty swords. From time to time one of the warriors is surrounded by a golden shimmer that reveals a level ascent. You, too, are looking forward to rampaging through Elwynn Forest, killing one murloc after another – fish don’t feel pain! After a few days of raging and – after a heroic fight and with the help of twenty other players – slaying Hogger, it’s off to the roaring fields of Westfall.
Life is just fine right now and you feel like a real adventurer again: there are no planet-sized, burning villains, no complex class mechanics and no rush. Just you and the big wide world. Then you get to the Redridge Mountains and your ideal world gets a little crack. Not that the sights aren’t pretty: Seenhain is located on the picturesque Immerruhsee and is dominated by the well-known eternal bridge construction site. The rock of the mountains is a pleasant brick red and scattered trees and ruins adorn the area. So why don’t you want to feel really comfortable here? Quite simply: Because the Redridge Mountains were built up in an uncomfortable way. Somehow, every time you venture out, the mountain valleys seem to be crammed with gnolls unrelated to your active quest that “
We’ve often found that we’re big fans of Classic WoW. We like its openness, the sense of a big wide world and the danger lurking around every corner. However, this also goes hand in hand with a small but fine detail that many players like to forget: Classic WoW is often adventurous because Azeroth was far from being as polished as it is today. This includes not only the quest structure and the understandable conveyance of an overarching story, but also the zone design. There was no such thing as the “amusement park edict” that made every piece of land on Azeroth not only pretty but also accessible. Instead, the Wild West awaits you, in which a level area was simply placed in the landscape, because it made sense or because the lead designer at the time liked it. And sometimes… well, sometimes the most nonsensical areas await us. Or, even worse: The areas that have “realism” as their goal. Seriously, we get it that an area that calls itself “Desolace” isn’t going to be known for its raging nightlife. But turning it into a real wasteland, we also think is a rather daring design decision. And of course we don’t just mean the color palette, which inspires with different shades of gray, but also the wasteland that represents the quest landscape there. we already get that an area called “Desolace” won’t exactly be known for its raging nightlife. But turning it into a real wasteland, we also think is a rather daring design decision. And of course we don’t just mean the color palette, which inspires with different shades of gray, but also the wasteland that represents the quest landscape there. we already get that an area called “Desolace” won’t exactly be known for its raging nightlife. But turning it into a real wasteland, we also think is a rather daring design decision. And of course we don’t just mean the color palette, which inspires with different shades of gray, but also the wasteland that represents the quest landscape there.
From the then completely meaningless Azshara to a tantrum-producing version of Thousand Needles to a wasteland that lives up to its name, there are a lot of nasty zones in Classic-WoW. We would therefore like to accompany you on another cucumber safari, in which we do a little sightseeing for masochists and take a closer look at the most unpleasant areas. Since we are Classic players to the core, we naturally expect the same from you. We didn’t have big quest lines back then! We explored zones just because they were there, hopped mountains because they were around, and slaughtered hordes of enemies to see what was around the corner. And seriously: Don’t we all carry the spark of an avid Classic masochist deep in our hearts? So grab your teething stick (which must be pretty worn out by now, judging by our last few articles) and smash your way through the depths of a very thorny jungle with us. Oh, and be careful not to fall into a ravine. There are a lot of them here.
The weird ones
We start our safari with a slightly bumpy round trip through unknown terrain. Our vehicle jumps and jerks a bit here, but the real attraction is the ever-present feeling that something important is about to happen – but nothing happens. You look around worriedly, but there is only silence. We visit the zones of Classic WoW, which were obviously integrated into the game in an unfinished state. Here you walk through an area that has been provided with interesting buildings and landscape features, but which are hardly used. One zone further, your footsteps echo through the empty spaces of ghost towns, with the constant feeling that you are being watched. It can’t be that someone creates an interesting zone without using it… or? By the way, we don’t mention Silithus on purpose, because a few patches later you will find one of the best quest lines in the history of World of Warcraft here with the saga about the war of the sandstorms(buy now) . Even if Silithus is currently just insects and disappointment, the ugly little desert duckling will become an impressive swan during the vanilla runtime of Classic-WoW – a swan with insect wings, but still.
The Alterac Mountains
The city of Alterac has a long and inglorious history, as the city-state allied with the Horde during the Second War. King Perenolde promised himself a respite from his treachery, during which he and his city would be spared from hostilities. The Horde kept their word, but when the Kirin Tor mages found out, they destroyed the city with a massive thermomagic first strike – we assume a mage barbecue was held on the ashes afterwards. The ruins of Alterac languished and were subsequently promised to a certain Lord Prestor as a wedding present for the daughter of King Terenas of Lordaeron. It’s just stupid that Prestor turned out to be the dragon Deathwing and disappeared. Unfortunately, without taking his princess or kingdom with him. From then on, the ruins of Alterac pretty much just sat around, with nobody really caring about a partially atomized traitor kingdom that luckily stayed year-round as cold as a yeti’s butt.
In Classic-WoW you will find yourself at exactly this point in the history of the Alterac Mountains: Nobody is interested in Alterac, not even the developers. There are hardly any quests here, hardly any important NPCs and no interesting enemies. Nothing indicates the troubled past of the zone. The only things you’ll find in abundance here are Syndicate thugs and confused wandering ogres. We don’t understand why the obviously available resources weren’t used here, because the zone itself is interestingly structured: Dandred’s Hollow and the Uplands appear idyllic, while the abandoned city of Strahnbrad has a mysterious atmosphere. Instead of having any interesting quests there, however, Strahnbrad is actually a ghost town – you’ll only find empty buildings, shadows and wind here. It is precisely the absence of anything that could be mistaken for content that makes the city so eerie. In the Alterac Mountains there is nothing but stillness, snow and a feeling that something is missing.
The Deadwind Pass
While the mountain pass of the dead winds from The Burning Crusade became practically a nexus point for dramatic twists, cool raid memories and hard-to-get mounts, you can expect nothing here in Classic-WoW. Seriously, absolutely nothing. You will only see the pass when hopping back and forth between Duskwood and Swamp of Sorrows. Again, the Zone feels oddly important despite being practically empty, as every place here has an ominous-sounding proper noun. Apart from the still sleeping Kharazan, you will find, for example, a small abandoned village at the foot of the tower, where ghosts and the undead are up to mischief. As with the rest of the zone, there isn’t a single quest here. The village is just… there. If you hike up the mountain path a little, you will come across an abandoned camp that bears the sonorous name “Aridens Camp”. Only Ariden is nowhere to be found and does not exist in the Classic-WoW data. Only with Legion was Ariden added to the game and at that time represented one of the adversaries that death knights had to deal with.
To top it all off, brave players can look forward to the original Tomb of Kharazan, complete with limited view, total silence, and alien names. Anyone who didn’t enjoy visiting the original “Reverse Sinners” in Vanilla-WoW should definitely do so. Modern WoW is nice, but fails to give you the vulnerable atmosphere of a lonely adventurer lost in a gloomy tomb with a hearthstone that can only be used once every hour. No quests, no friendly NPCs, just undead, dust, wind and dead trees. The dead wind mountain pass lives up to its name and is probably the emptiest zone in Classic-WoW – at least in terms of quest density.
Azshara
When it comes to beautiful and completely empty zones, Azshara certainly ranks first. Where a goblin paradise was pounded out of the ground in the era of Garrosh’s cataclysm, you will only find ruins in Classic-WoW. Please don’t get us wrong – the Azshara, as you can see it in Classic, is in our opinion one of the most beautiful areas of Azeroth and was the model for the fiery red and midnight blue landscape of Suramar. Stepping into the zone, one sees a stretch of land seemingly caught in perpetual autumn: the trees are covered in orange-yellow foliage, your footsteps rustle in great piles of fallen leaves, and everything is overshadowed by the ancient ruins that make up the center represent the zone. Whoever stands on one of the cliffs above the ruined elf city and looks down on it,
It’s just a pity that there is nothing here but ruins and grief. Okay, in the middle of the zone you can farm magic weed, a world boss trudges sullenly through the autumn forest and the Hydraxians are already waiting to eat your time with the Molten Core grind – but that’s about it. Azshara is a wonderful zone with hardly any quests, no story, and no meaningful occupation. Unfortunately, if you want a little company, you have to seek the proximity of ghosts, satyrs and stone giants, of which there are at least a lot here. We’re still a little pissed that this pretty zone was pretty much completely ignored by the developers. If any area deserved to be stuffed with lovingly designed story quests, it’s Azshara.
The Voids
So far we’ve been talking about empty zones that seem like they’ve just been forgotten – when a bunch of interesting stuff in a zone just gets ignored, it’s really a shame. From today’s design perspective, however, it is completely incomprehensible how one can design a zone that offers quests, but by design alone appears as if it were completely empty. The Dragonblight in Northrend, for example, feels like a wasteland, even if you find a lot of quests there and the landscape is broken up with interesting details. Gigantic bones, succinct landscape features, and a clever, zone-centered layout make for a comfortable stay. Who the term “wasteland” however, takes it literally and just piles up a pile of dirt and then proudly points the finger at it, may not have understood that realism in an online role-playing game is not always useful or desirable. And while we’re at it…
Desolace
You thought the landscape of the Wasteland was barren? Then we have a surprise for you. Desolace lives up to its name because while the wasteland simulates a trip to Mars, Desolace more closely resembles the surface of the moon after it’s been neatly bulldozed with a steamroller. The backstory of the gray wastes has a lot to do with a son of Cenarion who made eyes at an earth elemental. After both were somewhat surprised that the first centaur was born during their union, Sohnemann immediately turned around and murdered his father. Why? Well, centaur junior was angry because he knew instinctively that he was ugly as a prick. No joke. So after a demigod of nature and an earth elemental gave birth to their screwed up baby horse, the earth mother left the room with a short “nope” and the once blooming expanses of the zone turned into a gray tabletop. Again, it makes sense that a dying zone called “Desolace” wouldn’t necessarily be able to compete with the Cologne carnival in terms of mood and colourfulness. But what the design team came up with is more akin to a closed amusement park parking lot: everything is gray, it takes forever to cross the thing from end to end, and everything is full of ghosts. If you have a quarter of an hour, cross the area on foot. You run and run and nothing happens? Of course not, because Desolace is not only very flat, but also very empty! Gazing at rocks or dead kodos is the height of emotion, punctuated by the occasional attack from a confused centaur. do you like centaurs? If not, then we have bad news for you because, consistent with the zone’s backstory, the four tribes of centaur have supplanted almost all other life forms. Red centaurs, yellow centaurs, green centaurs, blue centaurs – as many centaurs as your heart desires!
But first, let’s take a deep breath and calm our hearts: As already mentioned, Desolace really does an excellent job of conveying the lost mood of a dead country. The density of the grind points and quests is also quite good. The only, but really big downside is that Desolace doesn’t do much with its dark mood for long stretches. Instead of telling the fate of the land through visual storytelling, such as Dragonblight does, the player encounters a monotonous landscape that is not only story-dead but also design-wise. The zone is practically so grey, empty, flat and dead that the name “Depressolace” would be a lot more appropriate. By the way, very brave adventurers can also discover cool things here again. You remember the Kodo Graveyard? Visit the graves once you’ve died on the screen yourself. The spirit kodos could definitely use a pat or two.
The annoying one
Finally, in our final category, we get to the heart of the matter: The real masochist territory. If you’re looking to test yourself, your love of Classic WoW, and your spirit of adventure, then we recommend a visit to this zone. It’s not even about the distribution of the quests or the existence of grind locations – both criteria are not a problem in the area mentioned. We are more concerned with a zone and spawn design that brings tears to the eyes of the average player eyes drives. Canyons, inaccessible paths, enemy groups that are far too large and an unequal level weighting between the factions are our main criticisms here. When all this is thrown in your face at once, even the most resilient player may need to take a short breather, so as not to use its expensive peripherals as an improvised club. So take your blood pressure pills, grab your stress ball and follow us into the nastiest zone of Classic WoW.
Thousand Needles
If you’re new to Cataclysm, you probably don’t know about Thousand Needles. What’s boring or annoying about a zone full of cool boat quests, voodoo, and a Grimtotem uprising? Oh, you virtuous children of summer. Just log onto the Classic servers and play your character to at least level twenty-five. On the Horde side, the closest you’ll get to that is playing in the Barrens – which in and of itself is a fun way to level up while cracking so many Chuck Norris jokes that you won’t be able to communicate in fifteen-year-old memes afterwards. So, after fighting your way through the endless expanses of the Barrens, you suddenly find yourself in front of an elevator that leads down into a canyon peppered with rock needles.
A Thousand Needles is one of the most beautiful areas in Classic WoW, and it’s almost a small crime that the entire Deathwing area has been turned into an outdoor pool. However, anyone who sets foot in the twisting canyon landscape for the first time will quickly understand why the developers buried all that misery under two hundred million tons of water: Whether you want to level here or are just passing through on your way to Feralas or Tanaris, there is exactly one way through the canyon. Of course, you can choose to go left or right past a rocky outcrop, but by and large you’re in a stone tube crammed with cairns hundreds of feet high. What’s the best way to fill the space between the rock piles? By stuffing everything to the brim with centaurs, of course (Desolace veterans already recognize a pattern). The rest of the gaps we simply fill with hyenas and snakes, which don’t have the slightest relevance to a quest in the zone. At least you can enjoy a wonderful view on the rocky spires. You died on one of the boulder towers? Congratulations, you can complete the same climb, including the stay in the elevator, again as a ghost.
However, one category of players might love Thousand Needles: Grievers themselves are big fans of environments where all they have to do is wait behind the next pillar for their prey. As a little bonus, the budding pro ganker doesn’t even have to travel far: The Feralas and Tanaris zones are right next door, offering Alliance players up to level fifty a cozy base from which to make pleasant short trips – just ignore the guards at the elevator in the wasteland. Remember the cliché from action movies that says “never take the highway”? Well, Thousand Needles is the highway for low-level players. You can’t leave the death trap until you find an exit that isn’t under siege. Have fun with it, pluck hyenas off your legs and then run to your corpse for half an eternity. The whole thing is kind of like rolling a fragile egg down an extremely bumpy hill. But what the heck, straight lines and easy paths… they’re for live server players, not you!
Tough areas for tough players
Whether you’re trudging through a gloomy wasteland for half an hour, slogging through an absolutely absurd maze of enemies, or bemoaning the wasted potential of the myriad half-finished zones, you’re a Classic player through and through. You complain about the botched zone design, you curse the unwieldy and sometimes nonsensically structured quests – but you never stop loving your worn-out old game. It’s that feeling of being a small adventurer in a big, dangerous world that doesn’t care about you that makes Classic WoW what it is. While the live servers are like a polished Lamborghini, Classic WoW is more like a forty-year-old Ford Mustang: we yell at the junk car when it twitches and its non-existent suspension smashes our discs, but at the end of the day, our old gem is proudly displayed and polished to a shine. So get out there, grab your rusty sword and show that you are an old school adventurer.
What is WoW Classic?
World of Warcraft Classic is a true recreation of the original WoW as you know it from 2006. All parts of the game – from combat mechanics and talent trees to character models and zones – have been recreated, contributing to the authentic experience.
Getting Started
All players with an active World of Warcraft subscription or game time on their accounts have access toWoW Classic at no additional cost.
- Open the Blizzard Battle.net Desktop App and select World of Warcraft from the menu.
- Select World of Warcraft Classic from the Version menu. If you have more than one World of Warcraft account, you’ll see a second Account drop-down list. In this column, select the active account you want to play with.
- Click the Install button. The progress bar will tell you when your game is ready to play.
- Click the Play button when the installation is complete.
You will need to select the realm you want to play on from several different realm types. Make sure you choose the same realm as your friends – in World of Warcraft Classic, you can only group with characters that are on the same realm as you!
Heroes&WIKI, WoW Classic, World of Warcraft Classic, WoW ClassicSpecial, WoW ClassicSpecials